Paper short abstract:

This paper uses subadult femur midshaft histology to examine different health and social outcomes of subsistence transition and environmental change in prehistory

Paper long abstract:

The second millennium B.C. was a period of significant social and environmental changes in prehistoric India. Population growth in the Deccan region of west-central India led to unsustainable agricultural practices in the first half of the Jorwe period (1400-700 B.C.). At the site of Inamgaon, agriculture was finally abandoned around 1000 B.C. and rates of skeletal emaciation increased as greater proportions of infants and children faltered in body mass index (body mass for stature). This paper correlates the evidence for growth faltering in measures of whole bone morphology with new evidence for growth derangement in the midshaft femur compact bone histology. The deposition of primary lamellar tissue at the periosteal surface and within the secondary osteons (BMU's) serve as a stratigraphic record of growth and growth disruption. When bone resorption and formation are decoupled due to disruptions in homeostasis, reversals in bone formation are visible as 'double zone' osteons and cement lines in circumferential lamellar tissue. Growth derangement is also observable in immature archaeological bone as a change in the expected distribution of porosity across the tissue and an increase in the total amount of porosity, accompanied by loss of cortical connections between resorption bays. In this paper, I will demonstrate the histological and macroscopic markers of growth disruption in immature remains from Inamgaon and clarify the specific biological impacts of significant environmental, social, and subsistence transition on the infants and children of Inamgaon.